The miracles of Fr. Herman. Healing of paralysis

THE MIRACLES OF FATHER HERMAN OF ALASKA


HEALING OF PARALYSIS

1936

THE EARTH FROM FATHER HERMAN'S grave is considered to have healing properties. Here is what one resident of Karluki village related to me last summer.

In 1936 a married couple, Peter and Yuliana Naumov, then living in Chief Point on the western part of Kodiak Island, had a fourth child born to them. The Naumov family lived absolutely alone in Chief Point and looked after the nearby lighthouse. There was no doctor, no obstetric nurse, not even a midwife present at the birth, and the husband happened to be out repairing the lighthouses.

She was in long and difficult labor, and as a result her whole right side was paralyzed from head to foot; she had been in perfect health up to that time.

The husband returned, and seeing the pathetic condition of his wife and four small children, fell into despair. There was no telephone or telegraph there; a mail ship came there just once a month bringing the necessities of life; and it was only when driven ashore by bad weather that a rare fishing boat put in. A doctor was necessary, but where would one go with an absolutely motionless wife and four little children in the harsh Alaskan wintertime. One couldn't leave the wife and children alone for a long time either, since the trip to the nearest settlement would take more than twenty four-hours. Peter was torn between the children and the sick wife, not knowing what to do or where to begin. Gradually, however, he gained control of himself and started trying all kinds of home remedies; but alas, they did not do any good, and only increased the poor woman's misery. The husband finally came to the point where he was going to put his wife and children in a boat and take them to a doctor in Kodiak, but the sick woman protested. They finally decided to try the last remedy that was once used by the Aleuts: to rub the paralyzed part of the body in order to cause an increased circulation of blood; but the sick woman, it turned out, did not react at all to the stimulus the paralysis was complete. Peter sought every sort of help in vain, and finally he turned to God.

While praying he remembered the story of the Aleut Egor Kaliglyou (who died fifteen years ago) how paralysis had struck him and deprived him of the use of his left arm, but how with mud consisting of earth from the grave of Blessed Herman mixed with holy water Egor had rubbed his afflicted arm and been healed.

When he had finished praying Peter, enlightened, turned to his wife and ecstatically cried out: "Herman, Herman." His wife by signs indicated the icon-case, where some earth from the grave of Blessed Herman was kept. Peter stirred the earth into some holy water and offered his wife as much as she could drink (it should be said here that for two days she had not been able to swallow at all). "I had to make an effort to pour the drink into her mouth, and I don't know whether she drank any or not," said Peter. Right after this he stirred in some more earth, explained again to his wife what this was, and began to rub her paralyzed body. "How long I rubbed, or which prayers I said, I do not remember... But Father, you see Yulia yourself, – and that is my whole story. Others may think what they like, but from that time on in our icon-case we have had, together with the other icons, a portrait of Blessed Herman..."

Silence followed, as each of us prayed mentally to Blessed Herman... Before me sat a healthy woman of thirty-eight, in the prime of life. I looked attentively at her and then at the image of Blessed Herman his black monastic cloak, his bent hands holding his prayerbeads, and I forgot that I had come to have dinner with Peter; I had come to behold the Divine world...

I remember this story now while standing at the grave of Blessed Herman, and I bend down and take some earth for myself...

On the way back I once again stopped in at the church, and then at the chapel. My companions have left the chapel-cell of Blessed Herman (on the site of which, in a little log cabin, Father Herman met his righteous death), to reinvigorate their physical powers, but I once more begin to contemplate and to kiss the relics of Blessed Herman.

Archpriest Alexander Popov Kodiak, Alaska, May, 1951

HELP IN CHILD-BIRTH

EMELIAN PETELO RELATES how a certain woman who had lived in the village of Ouzinkie always had difficulty in childbirth. She had had three children, and none of them had lived. She was again with child, and she had come to the island (to the Monk's Lagoon on Spruce Island), believing that she would obtain help through the prayers of Father Herman.

She came to the spring, and with a prayer to Father Herman she drank all she wanted of water from it. She went back to the village by foot (it was about nine miles from the hermitage to Ouzinkie), on the narrow footpath which was all the swampy and almost impassable island afforded; and on the very night she returned to Ouzinkie, she gave birth. She was successfully delivered, and without any particular difficulty, of a child who survived to maturity.

Archimandrite Gerasim Schmaltz 31 Oct. (13 Nov.), 1962